not much fat or nuts or dairy— but she was taking twenty vitamin pills daily. I suggested she stop those and just continue eating good plain food. Two weeks later, I got an ecstatic letter from her telling me that her face had completely cleared up. Obviously, her body had been excreting the excess vitamins through the skin on her face. As single elements, vitamin and mineral supplements must be considered medicine, whether they’ re natural or synthetic. They will fill a gap in the metabolism— if there is one. By“ gap” I mean a relative vitamin and mineral deficiency created by partial or incomplete foods, such as sugar or white flour because of their unaccompanied carbohydrates( see chapter three, this page). Thus, even a small amount of sugar in the diet will create gaps that could theoretically be balanced by supplements. But for a reasonably balanced individual following a regime based on whole foods, extra vitamins will be superfluous and will only create an imbalance where there probably was none. When supplements are used medicinally, careful attention has to be paid to the dosage. They’ ll help fill in a deficiency, but once they’ ve done so, their work is over and they should be discontinued. They are of course extremely useful in cases of clinical deficiency or extraordinary individual need. However, in the final instance, single-element substances such as vitamins and minerals cannot truly heal, because they themselves are not whole. Furthermore, because they lack the life energy of plants, they cannot stimulate our system to extract what it needs from foods. More often than not, in fact, a nutritional deficiency simply means that the body cannot assimilate or synthesize certain nutrients. 16 The scientific viewpoint currently adhered to by the medical profession, and by advocates of fortified naturalfoods diets, holds that the parts determine the whole, that the cell is the ultimate arbiter and director of the body’ s nutritional status, and that therefore it is the cellular component of foods— including individual vitamins and minerals— that we must pay attention to. The systems view holds the hierarchy in reverse: The whole determines the parts, health is a condition of the whole body, and a healthy body can overcome a few sick cells here and there. Let us not completely throw out one viewpoint in favor of another, though, even if we do prefer the systems approach. The concept of cellular nutrition is indeed extraordinarily important and one that helps us get a fuller picture of biological reality. However, my experience has shown me that our health is best served when we nourish the whole body with whole foods, rather than single cells with single nutrients. THE VEGETARIAN DIET Our citizens … will prepare wheat-meal or barley-meal for baking or kneading. They will serve splendid cakes and loaves on rushes or fresh leaves, and will sit down to feast with their children.… They will have a few luxuries. Salt, of course, and olive oil and cheese, and different kinds of vegetables from which to make various country dishes. And we must give them some dessert, figs and peas and beans, and myrtle berries and acorns to roast at the fire as they sip their wine. So they will lead a peaceful and healthy life, and probably die at a ripe old age, bequeathing a similar way of life to their children.
— Plato, The Republic As young as the Standard American Diet is, so is vegetarianism old. It goes back at least as far as the sixth century B. C. to the early Greeks; both Plato and Pythagoras were enthusiastic vegetarians. Basically, vegetarianism can be defined as a way of eating that purposely avoids animal flesh foods— meat, fish, chicken, game, and so on. There are three different approaches to the vegetarian diet:
• OVO-LACTO vegetarianism, which allows the products of animals obtainable without slaughter, such as milk and eggs
• LACTO vegetarianism, which allows only milk and its derivatives( eggs are unborn chickens)
• VEGANISM, which avoids all products of animal origin, including milk, milk products, eggs, all foods containing these, and at times even honey. Proponents of veganism may go as far as avoiding all products made with wool, leather, bone, and fat, including cosmetics, soaps, clothing, and other common items. There are a number of people today who call themselves vegetarian, but who do eat fish. Technically, that is incorrect, so I prefer to classify that eating style under the natural-food diets.
The difference between the Yogic and Natural Hygiene lies in their different basic philosophies: the first is an adjunct to classic Hindu philosophy, which divides foods into sattvic( natural, calming, cleansing), rajasic( cooked, spiced, gourmet), and tamasic( overcooked, spoiled, cured, unwholesome); the second is the brainchild of Herbert Shelton, who emphasized especially right and wrong combinations of food. A vegetarian way of eating is usually embarked upon as a result of an individual’ s ideological choice.